


Failure

by XantunsiaRiveresiana



Series: Xantunsia Riveresiana Chronicles [15]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Blindness, Child Death, Cults, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, Mass Death, Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Original Character-centric, Short, The Echo (Final Fantasy XIV), Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23628748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XantunsiaRiveresiana/pseuds/XantunsiaRiveresiana
Summary: Not even the most vaunted hero is  always successful
Series: Xantunsia Riveresiana Chronicles [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1700809





	Failure

The smell of dry and fresh blood mixing.  
The feeling of powerful axe swings sending vibrations through the air.  
The sound of a particular roar that's just a little more high pitched than a beasts.  
And, the ever so slight taste of sardines bizarrely drifting on the desert air.

"Ah, it's Xan." Meives concluded quickly, as her working senses surveyed nearly the whole of Amh Araeng's desert. The Blind Miqo'te trod happily toward what was clearly some sort of carnage. She knew the warrior fighting it, (or perhaps causing it? Either or...) and she had grown rather accustomed to her feral-ish friend's antics; journeying toward the chaos she was involved with merrily. Would she get tangled up in some world saving fight again? Or just a series of "training hunts" that would ordinarily take whole squadrons? Or perhaps it was something beyond common sense and completely nonsensical, like mixing up fish and gil again and nearly bankrupting a world power? With her tabard flowing behind her, Meives lost herself in the thoughts of what amusement her friend had waiting for her. So lost in thoughts, in fact, that she hadn't noticed. Not until she got close. Close enough for her heightened senses to be absolutely screaming at her. 

She was wrong. This was wrong.

The taste of sardines on the air had vanished at some point, overpowered seemingly as the blood from the scene increased and took its place. But saltiness accompanied it... tears?  
The sound of the roars, they were not the confidant and powerful roars she knew from her friend. They were laced with sorrow, like a beast crying out in anguish.  
The feeling of the axe swings was dulled, not like the usual hits against ferocious beasts, but like they were hitting something weak and fragile. Something not defending itself.  
And the smell, the fresh blood now far outweighed the dry, and by getting closer it became clearer that this fresh blood wasn't from a beast.

It was human blood.

Immediately the ninja shifted her leisurely trod to a sprint. Her mind trying to make sense of the sensations she was feeling while avoiding the obvious conclusion.   
"Xan... what are you fighting... what are you fighting that would make it seem like...!" She rejected the notion completely, but was unable to think of another answer, until she was close enough where she could no longer deny it.

Until she came upon that village soaked in blood.

What Xantunsia was "fighting"couldn't even be considered people anymore. Every brutal swing of the Warrior's axe there was accompanied by a "squish" as if tenderizing ground beef, with only every 6th or so swing having the proper "crack" of a blow to a solid body. There couldn’t have been any more than pieces of limbs left of her opponents, and yet she kept striking. Viciously. Angrily.  
Each strike churned Meives' stomach violently, reminding her of the slaughter she escaped from in her youth with her mother, rivaling it possible at least in its monstrosity. The sheer amount of blood and triggered memories even stopped her from noticing the rest of the scene immediately; the heat on her skin and the taste of charcoal in the air from the powerful blaze this village was engulfed in. All of these sensations hit her in especially slow succession, considering how used to her lack of sight she had become at this point. A sensory overload brought on by sheer shock most likely that forced her to take everything in one piece at a time. The next piece being…

"Xan…?" 

Her friend was mere feet in front of her. Letting out this sound somewhere between a growl and a gasp, interwoven between her sorrowful sounding roars, as she continued to crash her axe against the charred mortal paste she had created. It took a good moment for her to turn her attention towards the direction her name was called. It wasn't until then Meives' sixth sense started registering her surroundings; being heard finally through the screams of her more immediate senses. She felt the aether of the area, specifically her friend’s, and it was familiar at a glance. The energy let off by Xantunsia releasing her inner beast was nothing Meives hadn't felt before, but this was different. 

Warped. 

It was as if her Inner Beast, this raging embodiment of violent desire, was flaring at full force not to unchain her friend's strength, but to hold something back. Something more deeply repressed, with more twisted cravings, more primally violent ,  
and much more powerful.   
If what was usually felt could be called an Inner Beast, this was something else entirely. 

This was an Inner Monster.

Adding this to the sensory overload and sheer confusion of the situation Meives felt, her legs buckled, making her fall to her knees. The being swelling in this Monster-like aether, shaped like a longtime companion, took a step towards her as this happened. The sound of the heavy axe swinging up into the air could be heard as it approached. And as the tabard wearing miqo'te fought to react to all of this at once, with classic timing, her situation worsened.  
She grabbed her head to ease the coming headache  
"Wait... not now… damn it!"  
As her echo began to take her out of herself, the last thing she felt was the air pressure of a monstrous axe swing crashing towards her

"Xan...!!"

And then her senses were no longer hers.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
"This is… not good."  
The armor-clad miqo'te informed herself, limping across the desert. She was supposed to be resting at the inn in The Crystarium, having a bad case of 'vomiting up pools of umbral aspected aether' while her friends searched for a solution. Sitting still however, was firmly not how Xantunsia coped with worry and the idea of imminent death; Hunting Monsters on the other hand was her go to. She wasn't dying, she was fine, and she'd prove it by hunting like nothing was wrong.   
Or so she thought right up until she spewed more umbral bile at Trachia's feet instead of cleaving the parasitic beast in two like she intended. She took the Monster down in the end, but not without that opening being exploited, leaving her battered, beaten, and drained of even the aether to teleport. She slowly trod across Amh Araeng, her legs and vision failing her as the light exasperated her injuries further. Eventually she collapsed into the scorching sands near the Empty. As even her mind began to be clouded by light and her consciousness drowned out, she swore she heard footsteps in the sands.

"Ah, youre finally coming to!" Xantunsia heard a squeaky little voice say as her vision slowly came back to her. When she finally became cognizant of the image in front of her, it revealed itself to be a little Hyuran, or I suppose in these parts, human girl. And while she certainly didn't expect to find such a young child so near the empty where she last remembered being, she nary had time to contemplate any of that before the second realization. She wasn't dead.  
Not only that, she felt great.   
Xantunsia shot up from the bed she was laid on, throwing the wet cloth off her head and starling the small hume, and began thoroughly investigating herself.  
"Hya! A-are you okay miss…?" the girl asked  
"... Did you heal me?" Xantunsia asked, shrugging the girl's question off after finding no immediate answer to her confusion in her investigation.  
"I-I wouldn't say all that, I treated the fever like I do the rest of the village, but your body practically healed itself from the wounds you got. You must be very strong!" The girl rambled to the processing Xantunsia.  
"...Village?"  
The young girl lead Xantunsia out of the small and simple hut they were in, to show a collection of maybe two dozen similar homes, all built right up by the wall of the flood.  
"According to the elder, our sacred land was taken by the flood, so we set up our village here to be as close to it as safely possible… But it's not exactly the safest spot… in fact, for as long as I remember, I've been the only young person left." The child exposited, and sure enough, of the handfuls of people moving about the small settlement, all of them were well past their prime physical age.  
"Nothing here makes sense…" Xantunsia thought. Between her umbral aether lowering, and how a village of twenty some elderly people and a child could survive near the empty, something was definitely odd about this place. Could there be a clue to dealing with the light here? She was determined to investigate  
"And thats why it's up to me to take care of them!" The girl said, finishing her thought betwixt Xantunsia's own. "I'm Nina by the way, and I'll take care of you too if youre still not feeling 100%!"   
And as soon as Xantunsia's serious ponderings faced Nina's helpful heart and brilliant smile from that introduction were they forgotten, replaced instead by a heartfelt determination to help this wonderful child.

Xantunsia and Nina were glued to each other for the coming week, more at the former's insistence than anything. She relished in helping Nina with tasks, teaching her new healing and crafting techniques, better ways to lift and basic muscle exercises. While she was definitely taking some of the workload off the girl, the amount of teaching she was getting from Xantunsia almost seemed to exhaust the girl more than before, but she was having all the more fun for it. Meanwhile Xantunsia's light sickness got better and better the longer she was here. She was enjoying herself so much that she could even brush past how unsettling the rest of the village was. How they gave Nina and her the barest of pleasantries despite all the help they gave, and how they often hold themselves up for meetings at odd hours. There was a feeling of fulfillment in seeing Nina happy and helping her get more competent, a renewed satisfaction, and one might even say forgiveness. The easier tasks of crafting medicine were taking well, but so was the physical training. Xantunsia couldn't wait to actually get Nina to the point where she could begin training her in combat techniques. Perhaps one day they would be able to go and hunt together. These excited expectations and more swirled through Xantunsia's head

Until she saw the umbral bile at Nina's feet.   
And her mind emptied completely.

"Ni...na…? What… What is….?" Xantunsia struggled to get out  
"I didn't… wanna worry you…" Nina replied between coughs. "I thought… it would get better… if I did… what you showed me….. but……" was the last but she managed to get out before she collapsed.  
Xantunsia caught her moments before she hit the floor, snapping out of her stupor. Where does she go from here? What does she do? What CAN she do? This is the same thing that afflicted her and if the great minds of aetherology she borrowed from couldn't find a solution, there was no way she could. She didn't have the knowledge nor experience here.  
"Th-the elders maybe!" Was the thought she finally formed. They have been living near the light for generations apparently, maybe they knew something about this. Maybe it was common and they could fix it. They were likely in one of their weird meetings right now but she didn't care, she had to save Nina, and it was with this thought that she burst through the door of their meeting hut  
And saw the mound of light aspected crystals they were praying to.  
The elders were surprised for a moment upon Xantunsia's burst, but soon they returned to praying and the look of surprise turned into a twisted smile. A familiar smile. A smile she'd seen on Teledji, Lahabrea, once upon a time on Gil, and on Zenos.  
The grin of a Monster.  
Calling upon that borrowed Aetheric knowledge she pieced together what was happening in a moment. They stayed near the wall to harvest the crystals for this ritual, but it's a dangerous business. They were presented with a gift in the form of Xantunsia's arrival however and redirected their prayers from syphoning light from the crystals to syphoning the light out of Xantunsia herself and putting it into Nina.  
They were turning her into a Light Warden.  
She concluded this in but a moment, but had not a second moment to wonder why as a force of Arther threw her out of the chamber and across the village. It was from this position that she saw the all too familiar horror show. Nina had begun to let our wretched screams as the cocoon formed. That last act of desperation was soon quieted too. As the cocoon sealed she cast her final glance at Xantunsia, an act that Xantunsia herself could barely make out through the tears welling up in her eyes.

What emerged was a Sineater unlike any Xantunsia had seen before. A humanoid shape with wings, yet an appearance as if it was wholly made of white flames. And the face, just three searing black voids shaped to look like two eyes and a mouth, screaming out in pain.  
Why? Why had this happened? What was there to be gained from-...  
It was then that she saw it, the strands of aether leaving Nina and flowing into the elders who, rapidly, stopped being elders.  
"Ahhhh…! the Light of Rebirth! It blesses us once again!"  
"We nearly didn't make it this generation! Rejoice! Blessing be upon the light!"  
They were… regaining youth…? she tapped into that borrowed knowledge again. Had she heard of this? Read something before? They were regaining youth, regaining life. How could they do that unless-  
"....Unless they were taking life from somewhere else…"  
She had solved it. Though maybe she would have been better off to not have. They gave form to their belief in the form of a half primal half Sin Eater machination. And then had it's believed powers burn away at it's own life source and bestow it upon them. A normal primal couldn't do this, it would have no life, so they would need a host to take it from, and to give youth to so many people, a particularly young one at that.  
"....How long……" Xantunsia forced out of her shaking body "How long…. have you been sacrificing children…. to yourselves….?"  
The now young adult looking elders sneered at Xantunsia's probing.  
"Oh you needn't worry yourself over such things. While we thank you thoroughly for your support, your presence will no longer be required." One of them said before turning to what used to be Nina. " Oh magnanimous Light of Rebirth! This one means to do your disciples harm! Quick, strike her down and add her wasted years to our own!"  
The Sineater did not move.  
Quickly the smug looks disappeared from the villager's faces.  
"O-oh Lighted one! W-We beseech you! Come strike down our foes before-... b-before…!"  
The pleading of the villagers rang in a terrified cacophony, and still the Sineater did not move. Instead, it motionlessly floated in the air, twisted face focused passed the villagers and at the visitor, moaning and moaning  
"X…...A…….Nnnnnn……?"  
Xantunsia however, did not stand still. Her vision going red, the sounds of her enemies fading into muffled screams, she put on her armor, picked up her axe  
And began to hunt.

Meives snapped out of her Echo's grasp just as the monstrous axe had finished it's cleave. She felt the searing heat and dripping blood on her shoulder where it had connected.  
No, wait, near where it had connected?  
Her mind not wholly collecting itself immediately after her vision, Meives began taking stock of her surroundings. she reached up and felt for the weapon that seemed to have been crashing down on her and found it off it's mark. Then her hearing kicked in and she noticed the pained moans behind her, followed by her aetheric senses. This allowed her to firmly sense the Lightwarden mere ilms behind her. The burning figure of light causing the heat on her shoulder as it reached to touch her  
Until Xantunsia drove her axe into it.  
Meives pieced this scene together as her armor-clad friend released her axe and collapsed onto her. She could hear the searing of flesh as Xantunsia reach behind her, and from the movement of her arms, could feel she had cupped the creature's face  
"X...aaaaa…...nnnnnnnn……….."  
she heard.  
Right before she felt a large amount of light aether release back into the land.  
Followed by the drifting of ashes through the scorching air.  
But she sensed no little girl, and no body left behind.  
What she did feel was the dead weight of her friend's shaking body, collapsing fully into her now, a sudden weight shift she struggled to support, almost as much as she struggled to find her words. The scene fell into silence for but a moment, before Xantunsia's shaking infected the whole of Amh Araeng as she release a soul crushing wail of grief   
Quaking across the desert…

After her roar finally died down, Meives and Xantunsia got to building a grave for Nina, albeit in silence. Xantunsia the whole time lifelessly drifting through the processes and refusing to let go of Meives' hand. The grip however, wasn't the strong grip she was used to from her friend, the grip she held her axe with, the hand she extended as help in battle, no, more accurately, it was the grip of a child. A scared, tired child who had seen far too many other children die. She knew of Xantunsia's past, of the trauma she grinned and bared, but had only ever seen her bare it, only ever seen the tough exterior she protected herself with. Xantunsia was a hero, a protector of all Eorzea even, but even heroes need to be protected at times, and right now she knew she had to be this hero's shield.  
With the grave built, the two silently stood in front of it for a healthy moment until finally, Xantunsia let go of Meives' hand.  
".....I'll be right outside the village." Meives said, taking her queue. And left the two alone.  
And then, after 3 hours, Xantunsia met Meives where she was waiting, still clad in her armor, but with a bit more life to her movements.  
"Ready to go?" Meives asked hopefully, to which Xantunsia replied for the first time since their meeting with a nod  
Before turning around, lifting her axe in the air, and cleaving it down into the ground toward the village. The ruins exploded into bestial flames, and for a moment, Meives was concerned that something was wrong again. Until the warrior blaze died down, and while a slaughtered village was there no more, in its place was a scorched circle of black glass, with an untouched tombstone in the middle. While Meives senses raced to figure this out, Xantunsia put a hand on her shoulder and removed her helmet, revealing her swollen eyes  
And her smiling face.  
"Ready." She finally replied through her sniffling as the two left the desert behind them.


End file.
